( KRON ) — A San Mateo man pleaded no contest on Tuesday to two counts of attempted kidnapping following a series of incidents in 2024 in which he demanded women to get into his vehicle, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office. Royhil Kumar Lakhan, 19, claimed he was “just pranking women,” prosecutors said.
On Oct. 13, 2024, Lakhan parked his SUV outside of a home on Idaho Street in San Mateo, where a mother and her 4-year-old child were out front. While wearing a ski mask and brandishing a firearm, he got out, grabbed the mother’s arm and demanded that she come with him, the DA’s office said. The victim screamed and resisted before Lakhan ran back to his vehicle and fled the area, prosecutors said.
Two weeks later, a woman was running on Woodstock Road in Hillsborough when Lakhan drove alongside her and cut her off while holding what the victim saw as a handgun, prosecutors wrote. He made a gesture that the “victim took to mean to drop her phone or her bag,” and she ran off, according to the DA’s office.
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On Nov. 2, 2024, Lakhan pulled his SUV up to a pregnant woman who was walking on Burlingame Avenue in Burlingame and brandished a firearm, the DA’s office said. He then “ordered her to get into his SUV and perform a sex act on him,” prosecutors wrote. When the woman started screaming, Lakhan drove away…